Amazon has emerged as a fearsome competitor for everyone from book publishers to shoe retailers and online video streamers, but here’s one company some analysts think is positioned to beat the company back from its turf: Best Buy, the electronics retailer many assumed was in an Amazon-induced death spiral just a few years ago.

But things have changed: new management are shaking the company up, the consumer electronics market looks to be entering a new phase after years of Apple hegemony, and two of Amazon’s biggest advantages are being clipped away.

RBC Capital Markets today raised its outlook for Best Buy to “outperform”, saying its stock price still reflects, in part, old assumptions that the company was destined for the graveyard, despite the numbers showing it is instead set up for an impressive comeback. Its prices are now competitive with Amazon’s, and at the same time, Amazon’s prices are rising as the company starts charging sales tax in a growing number of states. Best Buy’s stores, once seen as a liability, are becoming an advantage again as consumers that once only came to browse, and then buy the product online later, are buying on the spot.

What’s going on? Best Buy’s policy of matching any online price for the products in its physical stores has been a big part of it, RBC said:

Management has indicated that the company’s price match policy (including price matching online competitors such as Amazon) has generated two significantly positive responses in the stores. First, it has reduced the potential of buyer’s remorse for customers who are afraid that they might overpay by buying product at Best Buy rather than somewhere else. Second, it has enabled the Blue Shirts to become more aggressive in trying to close a sale. Before the policy change, the Blue Shirts really didn’t have a retort for why customers shouldn’t buy from Amazon or someone else if they found a better price. Today, however, Blue Shirts can match competitor prices on the spot. This has helped the Blue Shirts become more flexible and aggressive in closing a sale as they can effectively take away any customer excuse if the customer really wants to buy the product but they just aren’t sure if they are getting the right value at Best Buy.

With that side of Amazon’s pricing advantage addressed, here’s the second factor: by next year, Amazon will be charging state sales taxes on purchases covering more than half the US market, including heavyweight states California, Texas, New York and New Jersey. It’s rolling out sales tax to eight new states by next January:

RBC Capital Markets

With state sales taxes adding 6-9% to the price of a product, Amazon’s historical approach of not charging them has given it another big price advantage on top of its lack of physical stores. Charging sales tax will “effectively eliminate the tax arbitrage that Amazon has enjoyed since its inception in these markets,” RBC wrote.

What else is going on? Best Buy is still much bigger in the consumer electronics industry than Amazon, despite the latter’s rapid growth. Best Buy’s share of the consumer electronics market is estimated to be four times larger than Amazon’s. ”We believe this size and scale provide it with important advantages over its competitors and, especially with the new management team in place, we suspect it will be unlikely that Amazon will have an inherent purchasing advantage against Best Buy anytime in the foreseeable future,” RBC wrote.

[...] away, and as we have written here before, by next year Amazon will be charging sales tax in states covering more than half the U.S. market, including economic heavyweights like California, Texas, New Jersey and New York. That might be [...]